HG 1/144 Age-1 Titus

Hello guys! At last I have decided to post this and not be lazy, actually I already finished him days ago but didn’t have the energy to take photos and post them here. Well here he is! I’ve finished HG 1/144 Age-1 Titus with some experimentation on a little masking and some battle damage.

Okay let’s start!

Here are the runners, a total of 6 runners and you can see the foil stickers too.

Torso parts:

Head parts:

Arm parts:

Leg parts:

Waist parts: take note that I’ve already assembled some parts so that I could paint them right away. XD

Okay, so the 1st experiment I did was to try the masking technique, I bought some hobby grade masking tape and an ordinary masking tape to see the difference. As what I expected, using the hobby grade masking tape almost produces no paint bleed at all! The paint was really straight and defined, while in using the ordinary masking tape, it was horrible and caused a lot of paint bleed that I needed to clean. On the left shoulder, you will see a white stripe, that is using the ordinary masking tape, while the right shoulder I used hobby grade masking tape.

So I guess I’ll be using the hobby grade masking tape for future projects where masking technique will be used.

I tried masking again on the left forearm using the hobby grade masking tape and it looks great!

The 2nd experiment I did was to do some battle damage! This part was most certainly exciting and interesting since I have never done this before and it involves in actually making battle marks on the MS kit.

Of course all of these experiments that I’m doing are not all original ideas, I’ve read a lot of tutorials from different sources and certainly who wouldn’t want to try them out and step up their skill level in terms of Gunpla modeling right? =3 It won’t hurt to try and see the results.

Okay, so how did I go about the battle damages? Actually it was pretty easy, you only need some toothpicks, a lighter and some imagination. 1st I burn some toothpicks with the lighter until it produces a bright orange ember, then I put off the fire, we don’t want to burn our own house down do we? Then I use the ember in melting parts of the kit where your imagination tells you where the battle damage might probably be. (Caution though as each person’s imagination might differ haha! =3). Well you can use a soldering iron to ease up the process but one thing I like better in burning toothpicks is that after you melted the part using the ember, the ember becomes a charcoal like material that crumbles into black powder that makes a really nice burnt effect on the MS kit itself as compared to using a soldering iron where it does not leave such burnt effects, it just melts the plastic, then you have to apply some black paint for the burnt effects. It’s a nice method to simulate bullet damage or beam saber damages, though it’s my first time so some damages might be off or something.

The 3rd experiment I tried is to produce some mud effects on his feet. I just used a Flat Earth Tamiya acrylic paint and some black paint in doing this. Hmm.. well what I did was to paint the feet with some thick layers of paint, then when it is about to dry up, you purposely destroy the paint job by using a dry brush and constantly poking the paint job with the brush, it then creates a texture that looks like mud with some dissolved and undissolved soil.

For the rust effects I tried using some copper paint to do the trick =3

Last experiment I did was using the “drill a small hole and put some IC holder pins on it to make small thrusters or metal part effects” =3 haha! I remembered reading this on some other blog but I can’t seem to find that post again, anyway it is just basically drilling a hole where you want to have some metal parts installed. For Titus, I installed some on his legs and shoulders. It actually looked pretty good for me and creates a mini customized look I suppose. XD

Putting it all together, there you have Titus that is weathered and battle damaged! Oh I forgot to mention that I also still did the Chrome Silver weathering method to simulate the scratches or paint coming off the metal surface of the MS’ armor. Now I tried to not go overboard with this method as I did on the earlier Banshee haha! =3 I’ve also painted the joints with Gun Metal as you can see.

After melting the parts I forgot to mention, I also apply some chrome silver on the melted part, its like to show that the metal underneath melted or something.

This one I drilled too much making the hole too loose for the IC pins to fit perfectly.

This one was a perfect drill hole that the IC pin fit perfectly!

Again showing you the mud effects that I tried. XD

This is what he looks at the back. =3

Now for some articulations, his articulations are overall great considering he is only an HG kit 😀

His legs can bend pretty well!

His arms too is great, not just the ordinary 90 degree bend from usual HG kits.

As far as splitting goes:

Now for my favorite part, some action poses!

Preparing for.. “GUNDAM LARIAT!” love these effect parts! =3

He looks kinda more bad ass with the battle damage yes? =3

“GUNDAM FLYING KNEE!”

“GUNDAM TACKLE!” or maybe shoulder charge?

He can actually do a semi kneeling stance =3

Kung-Fu fighting! “HIYAA!”

Well that’s! To sum it up, here are the things I did:

1. Masking technique

2. Battle damage using burnt toothpicks

3. Weathering using some chrome silver, flat earth, copper and black paints.

4. Painted the joints Gun Metal.

5. IC pins customization.

What I like about this kit:

1. Effect parts! The reason why I bought this is because of its effect parts!

2. Cheap kit! Bought it for only 685 php!

3. Easy and straight forward to build, can straight build in maybe an hour.

4. Great articulation for both arms and legs!

5. Actually I liked this MS design even though it is only a mêlée type, but he really looks heavy duty and “macho”

What I don’t like about this kit:

1. Hmm.. come to think of it, there is nothing that I don’t like about this kit, no loose joints, falling off parts or anything to that matter. He a great kit for a small price! =3

So that’s it! Hope you guys enjoyed the post as much as I enjoyed writing it and taking Titus’s photos. And yes its still a noob work because most of the stuff I did was first time and needs some practice yes? =3 See you next time! 🙂